United Irishmen

The Society of United Irishmen was a radical or classical liberal political society and revolutionary republican organization in Ireland which existed from 1791 to 1804. It was inspired by the American Revolution and the French Revolution, and it attempted to secure Irish independence in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Wolfe Tone, one of the movement's founders, established three major tenets for the group: the end of the British establishment's influence in Irish affairs, the full reform of the Irish Parliament and its representation, and a union of religious faiths by giving Catholics political rights. The society was banned in 1793 after the revolutionary French Republic declared war on Great Britain, and, in 1796, Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward FitzGerald met with French revolutionary officials in Paris to discuss French aid for an Irish revolution. On 24 May 1798, upon hearing that Napoleon Bonaparte was leaving France with a large fleet, the Society's leaders ordered a general uprising against British rule, mistakenly believing that Napoleon was headed for the British Isles, when, in fact, he was headed for Egypt. Limited French aid failed to assist the uprising, which was brutally crushed by the British Army. The British were aided by divisions in the United Irishmen cause, as the Presbyterians had wavered in their support for the revolution, Belfast merchants abandoned the radical cause due to economic reasons, and the Reign of Terror and the invasions of the Netherlands and Switzerland cooled sympathy for the French government. Wolfe Tone was captured in October 1798, ending the uprising. The failure of Robert Emmet's 1803 uprising led to the downfall of the United Irishmen, and the last rebel group under James Corcoran was crushed in 1804.